Rare Book Monthly

Articles - October - 2012 Issue

An Almost Perfect Crime: Rochefort vs. Du Tertre

Histoire Naturelle & Morale des Iles Antilles de l’Amérique,

No name (Charles de Rochefort),

First edition: À Rotterdam, chez Arnout Leers, 1658.

- 1 vol. in-4°: Frontispiece, title-page, portrait of Jacques Amproux (often missing), epistle (2ff), preface (3ff), to the reader (1ff), 527pp, table (13pp). The natural history goes from pp1 to pp262, the morale one from pp263 to 514, and the Vocabulary, from pp515 to pp527. 42 engravings inserted into the text, including some full page ones. The Dutch bookseller Antiquariaat FORUM BV, who has a copy on sale on Americana Exchange (click here), reminds us that “there are several variants of the first edition, one with the dedicatory epistle signed by C. de Rochefort, one unsigned, and one with an extra line in the impressum : Avec privilège, or Et se vend a Paris, par Antoine Collier.”

Seconde edition : À Rotterdam, chez Arnout Leers, 1665.

No name (Charles de Rochefort),

- 1 vol. in-4° : Frontispiece (the same, with the date at the bottom suppressed), title-page, epistle (11ff), preface (5ff), to the reader (2ff), lettres (6ff), 583pp, table (13pp). The natural history from pp1 to pp278, the moral one from pp279 to pp 570, Vocabulary frome pp571 to pp583. Same engravings as in the first edition but the portrait of Mr Ampoux has been supressed and 3 folding engravings added.

Third edition : - 2 vol. in-12°, À Lyon, 1666.

- Histoire Générale des Antilles habitées par les François,

Du Tertre (Jacques).

A Paris, chez Thomas Jolly, 1667-1671.

- 4 tomes in 3 vol. in-4°: frontispiece, (10ff), 593pp, (3pp), 4 engravings // frontispiece, (8ff), 539pp, 14 engravings // frontispiece, (8ff), 317pp, (8pp), 1 engraving // (3ff) 362pp, (7ff), 7 engravings.

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